


a kind of inevitability

by caphairdadbeard



Category: Ocean's Eleven Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Internal Monologue, Introspection on an Airplane, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 17:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17047556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caphairdadbeard/pseuds/caphairdadbeard
Summary: The thing about Rusty was that he was as inevitable as the con.





	a kind of inevitability

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tannne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tannne/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I hope you enjoy your gift; I had fun getting these two together after all this time.

The thing about Rusty was that he was as inevitable as the con.

Rolling his eyes at his own melodrama, Danny accepted his scotch from the flight attendant with a smile, easily tuning out the bustle of travelers slowly filling up the cabin behind him. He wondered how many of them were in a similar boat to his own: winners leaving Vegas with the bittersweet tastes of success, unfinished business, and the want of more mingling in their mouths.

Sighing, he sipped his drink and figured that if this is who he was now—Danny Ocean: Airplane Navel-Gazer—he might as well lean into it. He sat back in his chair, watching the ground crew hard at work on the tarmac, and let his mind go.

Though he knew of more than a few people who’d laugh if he said it out loud, Danny had tried to walk away from the con plenty of times. Once or twice, he’d really meant it. He’d convinced himself that the last score was good enough, that he could stand down and go straight and get a real job—or at least invest really well and get by that way.

But a month or two into his newly-turned page, he’d get the itch. It’d start between his shoulders—just out of reach, a mild annoyance. He always knew it for what it was, but he also knew how to ignore it.

For a little while, at least.

And then he’d be flipping through the TV, and he’d see a tourism commercial for Atlantic City or an ad for a new museum exhibit of Mesopotamian artifacts or just a really nice shot of some diamonds gleaming in the light, and that was that. He’d make a call, start sketching on the back of a napkin, and off he’d go. He couldn’t stay away, not in any way that counted.

Rusty was like that.

Wanting Rusty was equal parts comfortable and thrilling—like the con. Their first job together made the whole thing feel new again (although Danny hadn’t been in it quite long enough for it to have gotten old just yet). It was someone else’s gig; a friend of a friend of Reuben’s had lined up a pretty straightforward smash and grab, nothing fancy, and Danny ran the smash while Rusty pulled off the grab.

From minute one, they’d been in sync, like they’d both been studying the same dance for years. Danny went left, Rusty went right. They tripped over each other on comms, saying close to the same thing at the same time, and before long, Rusty had just gone silent, letting his silences be whatever answer Danny needed. That particular quirk had been there from day one.

It had been as exciting as it was deeply unsettling, and Danny hadn’t known how to react right away. He’d eventually gone the discriminating route of mentioning—casually—to Reuben that the new guy on the Henderson job had been solid, and he wouldn’t mind working with him again.

So that’s how it started. Reuben put them on another gig together, then they ended up helping Bobby Caldwell out with a thing, and then word traveled the way it does, and suddenly anytime Danny Ocean was on someone’s mind, Rusty Ryan was right there, too.

He couldn’t pinpoint exactly when things changed between them—at the very least, he was almost sure they hadn’t been this charged from the start. (Danny argued with himself about this particular point a lot.) Rusty was a lot of things—a respected conman, an invaluable sounding board, an accomplished wine connoisseur with shitty taste in suits. Dependable. Sneaky. Funny. 

Sexy.

The type of sexy that put your teeth on edge, made you roll your eyes and order another scotch as soon as the plane was in the air.

Anyway, the point was: Danny was drawn to Rusty in a way he hadn’t been drawn to many people in his life and had been since not long after they met.

Tess had spotted it a mile off when she walked into his life and saw the two of them together. She’d known immediately what Danny had still been dancing around in his head, and she called him on it almost right away. He’d reacted with calmness and maturity and had proceeded to get very drunk—which was still _barely_ drunk enough to have a frank conversation about his whole Rusty situation—before telling her everything.

And Tess was a pragmatist, to a degree at least. She didn’t shove him out the door (that came later, for the other thing he couldn’t seem to quit—but hey, she let him back in eventually), and they came to an understanding. Rusty wasn’t Tess, and Tess wasn’t Rusty; they weren’t interchangeable, but he wanted them both. Needed them both. And Tess was willing to let him have that—she always had been.

Much _unlike_ the con, Danny had never tried to walk away from Rusty. It’s just that he hadn’t actually...walked directly toward him, either. Yet.

First, he was too worried about messing with a good thing, and then he got married, and then he was in jail, and then he was trying to win back Tess, and then they were hopping across Europe to keep from getting themselves killed, and then _Rusty_ had his own relationship to deal with, and then they were back to pulling off impossibilities in Vegas and sidestepping their feelings. It had all snowballed somehow, gotten out of control in a way it wasn’t supposed to, and now Danny found himself on a plane home realizing it had been fifteen years, and he still hadn’t managed to throw caution to the wind and just kiss the bastard.

The familiar itch settled between his shoulder blades, so he pulled his cocktail napkin closer to himself and got to work.

*

It took longer than he would’ve liked to get a plan together. It’s not that Danny was stalling; he was just being....particular. 

They’d just finished the Bank job, after all. He needed to wind down, spend some time at home, bask in the glow of rousing success. He got a kick out of watching Benedict continue to do the press rounds on the tails of his newfound philanthropy; he considered taking up jogging; he bought a new fern for the living room and dedicated himself to its care. 

There wasn’t a next con on the horizon yet, so the only job on his mind was The Rusty Thing, which was sadly the best name he’d come up with so far. But he didn’t want to rush. Didn’t want to seem needy. He didn’t usually reach out to Rusty immediately after closing down a job, and he didn’t expect to hear from Rusty until something interesting crossed Rusty’s path, either.

He went about his business as normally as he could, waiting for inspiration to strike and half-heartedly flipping through the little notebook where he kept contacts and leads and plans. 

Danny managed to stretch his indecision out for a month before caving spectacularly, suddenly finding himself at the ticket counter forking over a credit card for a last-minute flight partway across the country. It had taken some carefully crafted and very nonchalant phone calls to figure out where to find Rusty while being sure word didn’t get back around to him first. Danny figured he had one shot at this, and he needed the element of surprise on his side.

The flight was excruciating, the cab ride from the airport was worse, and by the time he walked up the steps and stood facing the front door, his palms were sweating and his breath was shorter than he’d like he it to be.

Danny raised his hand to knock only to be startled when the door flew open before he could touch it.

And there was Rusty: new haircut as bad as the old one, tattoo peeking out of his sleeve, eyebrow cocked with intrigue.

“We gonna do this?” he asked.

“Figured it was time,” Danny replied.

Rusty nodded his head once, and that was all it took.

Danny grabbed Rusty by the collar, hauling him across the threshold and into a searing kiss that had been brewing for a decade and a half.

“Took you long enough,” said Rusty as they pulled apart after a good few minutes.

“Well. Anything worth doing....”

“Sure.”

“Stop smirking.”

“Make me.”

Danny did just that.


End file.
